


Wide Open Spaces

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [29]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Fear, Fluff, Lullabies, Magic, Panic Attacks, Reader-Insert, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23813722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: When your irrational fear gets the better of you, you find comfort from a surprising source.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 10
Kudos: 195





	Wide Open Spaces

It was heinously laughable, and certainly not something you’d ever breathed aloud to anyone else in the Tower. You, a member of a group of some of the world’s mightiest heroes, someone who had gone up against HYDRA agents and otherworldly threats, who regularly worked out alongside Thor, an Asgardian prince, were afraid of elevators.

It wasn’t the elevators themselves. That would be silly. It wasn’t like you had any suspicions about their ability to go up and down a line of cables and deliver you to the floor you needed. You had a reasonable amount of trust in the basic concept of elevators. That wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that, once you stepped inside that little metal box, there was pretty much nowhere for you to go until the doors opened again. You hated the feeling of being trapped like that, of having your movement restricted. Granted, you’d never actually been inside an elevator small enough to physically stop you from being able to move around, but the idea of it was always in the back of your mind threatening to choke you.

As intense as your fear was, it didn’t really have much of an impact on your day-to-day life. Most of the time, you could swallow it down and use an elevator with no real issues, even if you did typically keep your eyes clenched shut. On your really bad days, when the panic made it hard to breathe, you just opted for the stairs. No big deal. You rarely bothered with elevators while on missions, generally preferring more stealthy ways of infiltration, but if the situation called for it, the adrenaline made it easier.

You were between missions. Hell, most of the team was between missions. It was one of those rare periods of time when pretty much everybody was “home” in the Tower. It was still incredibly weird to call this place home, this huge building owned and operated by Tony Fucking Stark, but you were adapting. For the most part, each of you did more or less your own things while you were home. Group meal times did tend to happen, and sometimes Thor would round everybody up to watch a movie, but people didn’t really get up in your face. For example, you hadn’t seen Loki in days. That wasn’t really all that uncommon, but it did twinge a little.

You did not develop crushes on your teammates. That was how people got distracted, and that was how they got dead. But damn if your brain wasn’t trying to find a way to squirm around that. He made it abundantly clear that he was only in the Tower to begin with because of Thor. He didn’t want to be an Avenger even if anyone on the team wanted him to. He almost never went on missions at all and, when he did, he only ever went either alone or with his brother. So if you _did_ have a crush on him, it was harmless. You’d never work together, so you had pretty much zero chance of getting him killed. Or, more accurately, getting yourself killed. 

Maybe you liked looking at him. Who could blame you? He was gorgeous. That sharp bone structure, that cool and impassive look that always graced his face. There was something about his hair that seemed to call out to you. You always wanted to reach out and run your fingers through it. On the rare occasion that he joined any number of you in a common area, you often found yourself clenching your hands into fists just so you couldn’t reach out and touch him. And he was _funny_. You could be a bit of an eavesdropper, lurking quietly near wherever Thor and Loki were talking, but you always seemed to give your position away by snickering at one of Loki’s dry responses to his brother. Or at his facial expressions. Or at...really, anything.

Okay, so you were a giggly schoolgirl with a massive stupid crush and a massive stupid fear, but you were also a goddamn adult, so you could force both of those things down deep where no one else could see them.

Until Loki joined you in one of Tony’s elevators.

You hadn’t really even realized that he’d been behind you until you turned to hit the button for your floor. When you saw him, you gasped a little, startled. As attuned as you were to every tiny twitch of his face, you easily caught the smug little curl of his lip before he made his face go blank again. He reached past you to hit his own button, and you had just enough self-control to keep from trying to breathe in the scent of him. Then he retreated to his own corner of the elevator. That was funny. Did Asgard have elevators? Did Asgard have the same unwritten social rules for where to stand inside an elevator? You wanted to bring it up to him but didn’t. Sometimes he made you feel like a rambly mess, and you weren’t positive that you could accurately explain the human elevator social code. 

So instead you pressed yourself against one side of the elevator and screwed your eyes shut. It worked, for a while. The elevators in the Tower were faster than other ones you’d been in, sometimes seeming to rocket straight to the floor you wanted. Today, this one felt even slower than a normal elevator. It crept along at a snail’s pace. There was a quiet grinding noise that worked your last nerve. But you focused on your breathing. There was no way that you were going to let yourself start gasping for breath with Loki so close. Granted, he probably wouldn’t give a shit, but it was the principle of the thing.

The elevator stopped moving and you started forward without opening your eyes, but the doors didn’t open. When you did finally look up above the doors, the screen was blank. There was no floor number displayed there, and, as you looked on, it flickered a couple of times before fading out. 

“What’s happened?” Loki’s voice came from too close behind you. Already on edge, you just about jumped out of your skin and then cringed away from him. He didn’t react. He was probably used to the team not wanting to be anywhere near him. You wanted to explain your actions to him, but you were certain that you wouldn’t be able to make the right words come out.

“We’re stuck,” you whispered instead. You pressed the emergency button, but your mind went blank when you heard the voice on the crackly speaker. You backed away from the panel of buttons and wedged yourself into the corner while Loki took over for you. 

Everything sounded like you were underwater. Time was moving wrong: either your brain wasn’t taking in enough information or it was taking in too much. Either way, you felt your body reacting poorly. You hadn’t had a panic attack since you were a little kid, and now you were going to have one right next to _Loki_. Fuck. 

Okay. 

Five things you saw.

The flickering overhead lights. Your hands, clenched into trembling fists in front of you. Loki’s profile, perfect and elegant as ever as he explained what had happened. The way his hair curled around his ear, inky black against his pale skin. The walls closing in on you. Nope, that wasn’t working.

You sank to the floor. Well. You could be a whole trope now. Curled into a ball, shaking, gasping. That was fine. It wasn’t like you could impress Loki anyway. Might as well give him a little crash course on how weak and silly humans could be, just in case he didn’t already know. Dimly, you heard the voice on the speaker say something to him, heard him say something back, and then the static cut out. When he turned to you, he crouched down in front of you. You hated that. He ducked his head a little to try to get into your line of sight and then said something you couldn’t understand. It was probably something like “What the hell are you doing on the floor?”

Your brain wanted you to tell him that you were fine. Well, really, your brain wanted you to be fine. Your brain wanted you to be the kind of person who could take something like this in stride, laugh sexily, maybe make a joke about finding something to do to pass the time and give him a seductive wink. But your body shook your head and made you hide your face against your knees. 

He didn’t press you for answers. Or maybe he did, but your hearing was shot. In any case, he remained right there, crouching in front of you while you both waited for this to pass. It was always hard to know exactly how long something like this lasted, but eventually the panic loosened its grip on you. You felt a little like you’d run a marathon or scaled a building, but your heart stopped racing. Loki was touching you. He had his hand pressed to the back of yours where you were clutching your legs. When you finally attempted to draw in a shaky breath and lift your head, he pulled his hand away. But he didn’t move. 

“Are you afraid of _elevators_?” There was a little bit of confusion in his voice, but, somehow, not nearly as much derision as you would have expected. 

“No!” Your voice was a lot more indignant than the situation really allowed. You rubbed your hands over your face. Well, you hadn’t been crying. Small miracles. “I don’t like being...trapped.” 

“You’re an Avenger.” He sounded a little bit incredulous now. If your body hadn’t so recently betrayed you, you might have wanted to shoot to your feet and turn away from him, but you were pretty much stuck here. Anyway, it was hard to blame him. That was the same thing you told yourself when you were trying to bully yourself out of panicking.

“Yeah, well...you’re a wizard, aren’t you? Can’t you magic our way out of here?” You knew your terminology was wrong, but you couldn’t come up with a better word for him. He laughed, and the sound filled you with a surprising rush of warmth. 

He sighed, then, and sat against the wall beside you. He wasn’t quite touching you, but you imagined that you could feel...something. A warmth from his body, or maybe the energy from his aura. In any case, you liked him sitting next to you. “I tried,” he said, with a useless gesture towards the doors. “Stark must have found a way to block out my powers. But they’re sending help. We’ll be out of here soon.” 

You nodded, mostly to yourself, and tried for another steadying breath. “Thanks. And thanks for—you know...” You waved your hand toward the panel with the emergency speaker. Thanks for taking over. Thanks for being the grownup in this situation. 

Maybe he knew what you were getting at. He nodded and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Of course.” Silence fell, then. You tried not to listen for the sound of snapping cables. There was absolutely no need to bring in a whole new fear right now. After a while, you heard him turn his head and then felt him looking at you. “So...being trapped?” 

It wasn’t hard to tell what he was trying to ask. Why the fuck had you absolutely broken down over something as silly as this. Why were you, a grown-ass person, still more or less curled into the fetal position in a perfectly-safe elevator while you waited for a rescue team? You shrugged. It was about the only response you could give. “I don’t… There’s no tragic backstory here, if that’s what you’re asking. I just don’t like not being able to move freely.”

“There’s plenty of space in here. You can move as much as you want.” But something in his voice told you that he wasn’t just trying to reason you out of your fear. There was a question behind the words, almost like he was trying to see if it would make you feel any better. You were just enough off-balance that you couldn’t stop yourself from reaching out to take his hand.

“It’s a mental thing. I know it’s stupid. But I just can’t stop seeing the walls close in around me.” You closed your eyes. Loki squeezed your hand.

He was quiet for a little while longer, but then drew in a breath. “My mother kept gardens back home. People would come from across the realm to visit them. She won awards. I didn’t appreciate them much as a child. They always seemed too perfectly-manicured. I thought the world should be wild, a little bit untamed.” You smiled at that. It made sense. When you pictured Loki as a child, you pictured a boy who was always a little unraveled, a little smudged. You didn’t quite know why Loki was telling you this. He’d never once spoken about his childhood or his home. He didn’t typically say much to you about anything at all. But he told you about chasing Thor through those perfect gardens, running full-tilt at his older brother so he could catch him off-guard and knock him to the ground. He told you what it felt like to run like that, until his muscles burned and his lungs ached, and he confessed that it never took long before Thor had wrestled himself free. 

He told you story after story like that, each one set in his mother’s sun-lit gardens, until you were laughing and squeezing his hand. When you opened your eyes to look at him, to try to thank him without words, you realized that the two of you were surrounded by plants. Stone. Sunlight. He’d conjured up the illusion of the gardens and sat the two of you right in the middle of it all. Your mouth dropped open and you could swear that you felt a warm breeze. 

“That’s amazing.” You didn’t trust yourself to speak any louder than a whisper, but he heard you fine anyway. “Oh my god...” The illusion was perfect. It looked like you could reach out and touch anything. “You’re so good, Loki.”

He laughed at your words again. “Congratulations, I think you have the honor of being the first Midgardian ever to say something like that to me.” He sounded a little amused, but mostly kind of...wistful. You tightened your grip on his hand. When he looked at you, his face was no longer cool and impassive, and was instead _soft_. Open. Your stomach did a flip, but you couldn’t look away.

“I won’t be the last.” You said it fiercely, like you could know for certain that your words were true. They _should_ be true. He shrugged.

“It’s alright. Is this helping?” You heard a sound like a birdcall above your head, and looked up into a gorgeous Asgardian sky. There were clouds drifting by. You rested your head against the wall behind you, only to realize that Loki had turned it into a large tree. By all appearances, the two of you were sitting with your backs against the expansive trunk. The branches spread above you, and quickly, buds sprouted and turned into leaves. He was doing all this for you. As far as you could tell, he paid very little attention to you. Most of the time it seemed like he didn’t even know you lived here. But he’d seen you dissolve into terror and hadn’t thought twice before taking action. 

You nodded, not trusting your voice again, though now it was for very different reasons. When you squeezed his hand _again_ , he did the same back to you. It was quiet for a while, just the wind in the leaves and a quiet shout from a child somewhere in the distance. “I don’t know how to thank you for this.”

The illusion faded a bit as you heard workmen doing something outside the doors of the elevator, but it held fast. They shouted something through the doors, some assurance that they’d get you out of there soon. Loki turned his head toward you and smiled slyly. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”


End file.
